In this paper, I derive a structural econometric model of learning by doing from a dynamic oligopoly game. Unlike previous empirical models, this model is capable of testing hypotheses concerning both the technological nature and behavioral implications of learning. I estimate the model with firm level data from the early U.S. rayon industry. The empirical results show that there were considerable differences across firms in both proprietary and spillover learning. The results also indicate that two of the three firms took their rival's reactions into account when choosing their strategies.
-
Asymmetric Learning Spillovers
April 1993
Working Paper Number:
CES-93-07
In this paper, I employ a linear-quadratic model of an industry characterized by learning by doing to examine the implications of asymmetric learning spillovers. Importantly, I show that distribution of spillover benefits can influence market structure in ways that can not be seen in models where spillovers are symmetric. If spillovers are asymmetric, a tradeoff between improved industry performance and increased market concentration can arise which does not occur when they are symmetric. This tradeoff leads to a policy dilemma; whether to promote static or dynamic efficiency in markets where learning is important.
View Full
Paper PDF
-
Learning by Doing and Plant Characteristics
August 1996
Working Paper Number:
CES-96-05
Learning by doing, especially spillover learning, has received much attention lately in models of industry evolution and economic growth. The predictions of these models depend on the distribution of learning abilities and knowledge flows across firms and countries. However, the empirical literature provides little guidance on these issues. In this paper, I use plant level data on a sample of entrants in SIC 38, Instruments, to examine the characteristics associated with both proprietary and spillover learning by doing. The plant level data permit tests for the relative importance of within and between firm spillovers. I include both formal knowledge, obtained through R&D expenditures, and informal knowledge, obtained through learning by doing, in a production function framework. I allow the speed of learning to vary across plants according to characteristics such as R&D intensity, wages, and the skill mix. The results suggest that (a) Ainformal@ knowledge, accumulated through production experience at the plant, is a much more important source of productivity growth for these plants than is Aformal@ knowledge gained via research and development expenditures, (b) interfirm spillovers are stronger than intrafirm spillovers, (c) the slope of the own learning curve is positively related to worker quality, (d) the slope of the spillover learning curve is positively related to the skill mix at plants, (e) neither own nor spillover learning curve slopes are related to R&D intensities. These results imply that learning by doing may be, to some extent, an endogenous phenomenon at these plants. Thus, models of industry evolution that incorporate learning by doing may need to be revised. The results are also broadly consistent with the recent growth models.
View Full
Paper PDF
-
Innovation and Regulation in the Pesticide Industry
December 1995
Working Paper Number:
CES-95-14
This paper examines the hypothesis that regulation negatively affects pesticide innovation, causes pesticide companies to introduce more harmful pesticides, and discourages firms from developing pesticides for minor crop markets. The results confirm that pesticide regulation adversely affects innovation and discourages firms from developing pesticides for minor crop markets. Contrary to the hypothesis, however, regulation encourages firms to develop less toxic pesticides. Estimates suggest that it requires about $29 million in industry expenditures on health and environmental testing to affect the toxicity of one new pesticide.
View Full
Paper PDF
-
Industry Learning Environments and the Heterogeneity of Firm Performance
December 2006
Working Paper Number:
CES-06-29
This paper characterizes inter-industry heterogeneity in rates of learning-by-doing and examines how industry learning rates are connected with firm performance. Using data from the Census Bureau and Compustat, we measure the industry learning rate as the coefficient on cumulative output in a production function. We find that learning rates vary considerably among industries and are higher in industries with greater R&D, advertising, and capital intensity. More importantly, we find that higher rates of learning are associated with wider dispersion of Tobin's q and profitability among firms in the industry. Together, these findings suggest that learning intensity represents an important characteristic of the industry environment.
View Full
Paper PDF
-
Regulation and Firm Size, Foreign-Based Company Market Presence, Merger Choice In The U.S. Pesticide Industry
June 1994
Working Paper Number:
CES-94-06
This paper uses Two-Stage Least Squares to examine the impact of pesticide product regulation on the number of firms and the foreign-based company market share of U.S. Pesticide Companies. It also investigates merger choice with a multinomial logit model. The principal finding is that greater research and regulatory costs affected small innovative pesticide companies more than large ones and encouraged foreign company expansion in the U.S. pesticide market. It was also found that the stage of the industry growth cycle and farm sector demand influenced the number of innovative companies and foreign-based company market share. Finally, firms that remain in the industry were found to have greater price cost margins, lower regulatory penalties costs, and a much greater multinational business presence than those that departed.
View Full
Paper PDF
-
Scale Economies and Consolidation in Hog Slaughter
March 2000
Working Paper Number:
CES-00-03
We use establishment based panel data to estimate a cost function which identifies the role of scale economies in hog slaughter consolidation. We find modest by extensive technological scale economies in the 1990s, and they became more important over time. But wages rose sharply with plant size through the 1970s and those wage premiums generated a pecuniary scale diseconomy that largely offset the effects of technological scale economies. The size-wage relation disappeared in the 1980; with growing technological scale economies and disappearing pecuniary diseconomies, large plants realized growing cost advantages over smaller plants, and production shifted to larger plants.
View Full
Paper PDF
-
Import Price Pressure on Firm Productivity and Employment: The Case of U.S. Textiles
March 2006
Working Paper Number:
CES-06-09
Theoretical research has predicted three different effects of increased import competition on plant-level behavior: reduced domestic production and sales, improving average efficiency of plants, and increased exit of marginal firms. In empirical work, though, such effects are difficult to separate from the impact of exogenous technological progress (or regress). I use detailed plant-level information available in the US Census of Manufacturers and the Annual Survey of Manufacturers for the period 1983-2000 to decompose these effects. I derive the relative contribution of technology and import competition to the increase in productivity and the decline in employment in textiles production in the US in recent years. I then simulate the impact of removal of quota protection on the scale of operation of the average plant and the incentive to plant closure. The methodology employs a number of important innovations in examining the impact of falling import prices on the domestic production of an import-competing good. First, import competition is modeled directly through its impact on the relative prices of monopolistically competitive goods along the lines suggested by Melitz (2000). Second, the effect of technology is incorporated through structural estimation of plant-level production functions in four factors (capital, labor, energy and materials). Solutions to econometric difficulties related to missing capital data and unobserved productivity are incorporated into the estimation technique. The model is estimated for plants with primary product in SIC 2211 (broadwoven cotton cloth). Results validate modeling demand as for differentiated products. Technological coefficients are sensible, with exogenous technological progress playing a large role. In the simulations run, the effects of foreign price competition are orders of magnitude higher than those of technological progress for the period after quotas on imports are removed. The large-scale reduction in employment and output in the US is shown to be a combination of reduced employment and output at plants in continuous operation and of plant closures that exceed new entries.
View Full
Paper PDF
-
Estimating the Hidden Costs of Environmental Regulation
May 2002
Working Paper Number:
CES-02-10
This paper examines whether accounting systems identify all the costs of environmental regulation. We estimate the relation between the 'visible' cost of regulatory compliance, i.e., costs that are correctly classified in firms' accounting systems, and 'hidden' costs i.e., costs that are embedded in other accounts. We use plant-level data from 55 steel mills to estimate hidden costs, and we follow up with structured interviews of corporate-level managers and plant-level accountants. Empirical results show that a $1 increase in the visible cost of environmental regulation is associated with an increase in total cost (at the margin) of $10-11, of which $9-10 are hidden in other accounts. The findings suggest that inappropriate identification and accumulation of the costs of environmental compliance are likely to lead to distorted costs in firms subject to environmental regulation.
View Full
Paper PDF
-
The Survival of Industrial Plants
October 2002
Working Paper Number:
CES-02-25
The study seeks to explain the attrition rate of new manufacturing plants in the United States in terms of three vectors of variables. The first explains how survival of the fittest proceeds through learning by firms (plants) about their own relative efficiency. The second explains how efficiency systematically changes over time and what augments or diminishes it. The third captures the opportunity cost of resources employed in a plant. The model is tested using maximum-likelihood probit analysis with very large samples for successive census years in the 1967-97 period. One sample consists of an unbalanced panel of about three-fourths of a million plants of single and multi-unit firms, or alternatively of about 300,000 plants if only the most reliable data are considered. The second is restricted to the plants of multi-unit firms in the same time span and consists of an unbalanced panel of more than 100,000 plants. The empirical analysis strongly confirms the predictions of the model.
View Full
Paper PDF
-
Output Price And Markup Dispersion In Micro Data: The Roles Of Producer And Heterogeneity And Noise
August 1997
Working Paper Number:
CES-97-10
This paper provides empirical evidence on the extent of producer heterogeneity in the output market by analyzing output price and price-marginal cost markups at the plant level for thirteen homogeneous manufactured goods. It relies on micro data from the U.S. Census of Manufactures over the 1963-1987 period. The amount of price heterogeneity varies substantially across products. Over time, plant transition patterns indicate more persistence in the pricing of individual plants than would be generated by purely random movements. High-price and low-price plants remain in the same part of the price distribution with high frequency, suggesting that underlying time-invariant structural factors contribute to the price dispersion. For all but two products, large producers have lower output prices. Marginal cost and the markups are estimated for each plant. The markup remains unchanged or increases with plant size for all but four of the products and declining marginal costs play an important role in generating this pattern. The lower production costs for large producers are, at least partially, passed on to purchasers as lower output prices. Plants with the highest and lowest markups tend to remain so over time, although overall the persistence in markups is less than for output price, suggesting a larger role for idiosyncratic shocks in generating markup variation.
View Full
Paper PDF